Nation's Oldest Stable Closing

New York, NY —

A piece of New York City history will be lost this weekend. The Claremont Riding Academy, the nation’s oldest continuously operated stable, will shut its doors to horses on Sunday. WNYC’s Richard Hake visits the stable on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

REPORTER: If you look down West 89th Street, you might catch the glimpse of a horse walking into what looks like someone’s brownstone. Up close though, the horses are actually ascending a ramp into a four story turn of the century stable building that opened in 1892. It was a time when some 750 livery stables dotted the urban landscape. Today it’s the last one--- where 45 horses live, are rented out by the hour and provide riding lessons.

Inside, there’s a hay and dirt covered arena. Music is played, a teacher shouts out commands and ten students gracefully ride their horses along an outer track.

As they speed up to a trot, it looks like a live carousel with a light breeze picking up in the dimly lit and pungent smelling space.

NOVOGRAD: It’s what I call woefully authentic, but there is a certain charm to that and atmosphere to that.

REPORTER: Paul Novograd took over the business from his father who started there in the 1930s as a bookkeeper. After a paintstaken renovation which put The Claremont on the national register of Historic Places and a designated City Landmark, he says he can’t sustain the business—partly due to expenses, but mainly because the bridle path in Central Park is no longer hospitable to horses.

NOVOGRAD: Even if the Parks Department wanted to make it horses only it’s just too inviting to pedestrians and dirt bikers and people throwing Frisbees and people pushing strollers and it’s a zoo out there. And our horses are thank you, just too polite for zoos.

REPORTER: The Parks Commissioner Adriene Benepe calls it a great loss. Riding teacher Guenevere Taylor works at Claremont and says there’s no other place where you can rent a horse to ride in the park.

TAYLOR: Riding in Central Park is a rarity, when it’s done, when it’s over it’s over. And I can’t see anyone else opening one up. After 115 years, you can’t ride horses in Central Park it’s kind of a sad thought.

REPORTER: For the past 8 years, Alex Redmonde has been coming to Claremont. She practices for her job at the opera where she rides horses on the stage in productions of Carmen.

REDMONDE: Where else can you get on a horse and ride through taxis, buses, smog, past pit bulls and baby carriages and be in a park. It’s like being in a movie being surrounded by all these buildings which change from modern to medieval which you see on the outside and then you are in the park and you feel like you are in Camelot.

REPORTER: And the riders are passionate about the closing. Interior designer Joanna Chapin started coming here in 1978 soon after moving to the Upper West Side.

CHAPIN: There’s a grandness about it that’s going to be gone.

REPORTER: You are getting a little misty eyed.

CHAPIN: Yeah, it’s very sad. It’s the end of an era. And it’s cheaper than a shrink.

REPORTER: The Claremont’s owner, Paul Novograd, won’t comment on what will happen to the building or for how much he’s selling it for. He will say that the horses are all going to good homes.

NOVOGRAD: This is such a special, unique place and our horses are just extraordinary. It’s like the Frank Sinatra song, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. These horses have street savvy, they are New York City horses, they are great.

REPORTER: But the closing of the Claremont will also close a chapter in New York’s history. In order to ride a horse you’ll have to travel elsewhere. For WNYC, I’m Richard Hake.

Some concerned riders, residents and elected officials are planning to gather outside the stables this afternoon to urge the owner to keep Claremont open.